Who won the blockbuster attraction battle between Disney and Universal when Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure went head-to-head this summer for theme park supremacy?

When it comes to attraction downtime, the comparison isn’t even close.

Disneyland’s Smugglers Run has had virtually no operational issues since opening while the Hagrid’s roller coaster at Universal’s Islands of Adventure in Florida has been plagued by downtime problems from day one, according to Touring Plans.

Data collected through October at both parks by the theme park tracking company found that the average downtime has been zero percent for Smugglers Run and 25% for Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure since both attractions opened.

“Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure continues to be hugely popular with our guests, with many calling it the best ride they’ve ever experienced,” Universal Orlando officials said in a statement via email. “The attraction is the most sophisticated, high-performance ride system we’ve ever created and we continue to work to make sure that guests who want to experience the attraction have the opportunity to do so.”

Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure had 8- to 10-hour lines during its opening days. In a knock against Universal’s new attraction, Disney Parks chairman Bob Chapek said theme park attractions shouldn’t have 10-hour lines if they are built with enough rider capacity.

“So, 10-hour lines are not a sign of success,” Chapek told CNBC. “It should be seen as a sign of, frankly, failure.”

Disneyland’s Smugglers Run attraction has consistently had 30- to 60-minute wait times since opening.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said attraction availability for the Smugglers Run attractions at the twin Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed lands in California and Florida has been in the high 90 percent range.

“That basically means a very, very complex technological attraction is running really well,” Iger said during a recent quarterly earnings call with analysts.

Since officially debuting on May 31 at Disneyland, Smugglers Run has had a monthly average of zero percent downtime in June, August, September and October, according to Touring Plans. The average monthly downtime rose slightly to 1% in July when Smugglers Run was unavailable for parts of four days, according to Touring Plans. Since then, the Disneyland attraction has experienced four more days of downtime of 5% or less — one in August, two in September and one in October.

Smugglers Run benefits from having four slowly rotating attraction turntables. Like bullets in the chambers of a revolver handgun, each turntable has multiple Millennium Falcon cockpits. That means Touring Plans only registers downtime for Smugglers Run if all four turntables of the flight simulator go down at the same time.

Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure isn’t as fortunate: The coaster has several trains that run on one track. When the ride breaks down, as it is prone to do, the coaster racks up downtime.

Technical issues plagued Universal’s new coaster from the very beginning. A few days after the grand opening, Universal announced that Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure would open at midday for a few weeks to allow for daily maintenance and technical support of the sophisticated, high-performance ride system. Then in mid-July Universal flipped the schedule and announced that the ride would start closing early to allow for routine daily maintenance.

Hagrid’s coaster got off to a rough start after officially debuting on June 13 with the ride’s average downtime clocking in at 30% during the month, according to Touring Plans. Problems started almost immediately with downtime topping 50% on three days during the first two weeks of operation, Touring Plans data shows.

Things improved over the summer for Hagrid’s coaster with the average monthly downtime dropping to 11% in July and 17% in August, according to Touring Plans. After a few rough days over the long Fourth of July weekend, downtime on Hagrid’s coaster hovered in the single digits for much of July. Downtime steadily creeped up in the first half of August before spiking in the middle of the month with the ride unavailable for more than 50% of the day on Aug. 18 and 19, Touring Plans data shows.

Since then, average monthly downtime increased to 32% in September and 41% in October, according to Touring Plans. A five-day period on Sept. 18-22 saw average daily downtime on Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure at just over 50%, Touring Plans data shows. October was even worse with a third of the month experiencing daily downtimes of more than 50%, according to Touring Plans.

Brady MacDonald is a theme park reporter for the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group. He’s covered the theme park industry for more than 25 years. He writes about Disney, Universal, Six Flags, SeaWorld, Cedar Fair and Legoland parks in Southern California, across the United States and around the world. As a member of the SCNG Features team, he also writes about entertainment, travel, pop culture, music, restaurants and craft beer.

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